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If you are hearing about a company names Sensata, here is the story. Right now this company is moving equipment out of a factory in Freeport, Il. and shipping it to China. They are making the workers there train their Chinese replacements. And the end of the year they are laying off the American workers. The workers have set up a camp across from the factory and have named it Bainport. (please click!) Supporters are trying to block the trucks, and some have been arrested. This is all happening right now, even as Mitt Romney says he wants to “get tough on China.” So the workers have asked Romney to come to Freeport and help them.

What’s Going On?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney started the “private equity” firm Bain Capital. Bain Capital makes its money by purchasing companies using “leveraged buyouts” that borrow huge sums using the purchased company’s own assets as collateral. They often use part of the borrowed money to immediately pay itself. Bain then cuts costs by doing things like sending jobs to China, cutting wages and manipulating tax rules to cut taxes owed, along with standard big-business practices like consolidating business units, taking advantage of economies of scale not available to smaller competitors, squeezing distribution channels for price cuts, and other practices that bring competitive advantages. (Please see So DID Mitt Romney Really “Create Jobs” At Staples? for a look at how this works.) Then, after reorganizing the purchased companies Bain “harvests” them for profit. (“Harvest” is Romney’s word, watch the linked video.)
Bain Capital purchased a sensor manufacturer that makes key components for our automobile supply chain, and named it Sensata. They immediately announced they closing a factory in Freeport, Ill., and sending the manufacturing and jobs to China to save money. (This is significant because China is engaged in efforts to dominate American auto supplies. See China Cheating Costs 400K Auto Parts Jobs and Why The Latest Trade Complaint Against China Matters. )Bain/Sensata brought in Chinese workers and made the Freeport workers train them. Bain/Sensata is moving the equipment out of the Freeport factory and shipping it to China right now. The Freeport employees have set up a camp outside the factory that they call Bainport and are trying to stop the Bain trucks that are moving the equipment out for shipment to China. Supporters were arrested this week, trying to stop those trucks.The Sensata employees have asked Romney to come to Freeport/Bainport and help them. Read on to learn about Romney’s response to the Sensata workers, and how Romney is actually making big money right now from shipping their jobs to China.

Romney’s Opportunity

Mitt Romney is not running Bain Capital anymore. While he still makes millions from the company, and gets checks from the profits made when they ship jobs to China), this is a tremendous opportunity for him. Can you imagine a better spokesman for the Bainport employees than the former head of Bain Capital, who now says he opposes the kinds of things that Bain Capital is doing here?
This is an opportunity for Romney to show the public that he actually means it when he says he wants to do something about companies sending jobs to China! Here is his former company, people who know him, sending jobs to China right now and there is no one in a better position to put pressure on them to stop this than the former head of the company, and on top of that a presidential candidate!
What an opportunity for Romney to show that he means what he says!

Will Romney Help?

Mitt Romney wants to be President, and polls show that the public overwhelmingly wants something done about jobs and factories moving to China and the resulting was pressure that puts on the rest of us and on our economy. So Romney says he will do something about it.
But Romney’s current actions are opposite his current words. He complains about China currency manipulation, but refuses to ask the Republican House leadership to bring the China currency bill up for a vote, and refuses to ask more than 60 Republican co-sponsors of that bill to sign a “discharge petition” that would force a vote.And Romney refuses to even meet with Sensata workers. When asked if Romney would help these workers the Romney campaign says Romney will not do it:

“Governor Romney has not worked at Bain Capital for over a decade, but for four years President Obama has been presiding over an economy that is creating too few jobs and sending more jobs overseas. Despite the President being invested in Sensata through his personal pension fund, and the government owning a major Sensata customer in GM, President Obama has not used his powers to help this situation in any way.”— Curt Cashour, Romney Campaign Spokesman.

PS – SNL

Here is SNL addressing the disparity between how Chinese workers are treated (because they don’t have a say) and American expectations:

On the campaign trail Romney says we shouldn’t ship jobs to China and should “crack down” on China trade problems. But he refuses to help or even meet with the Sensata workers whose jobs are being shipped to China right now.
Why the refusal to line up his actions with his promises? A must-read, must-read, must-read news report explains how part of Romney’s $400,000/week income comes from … get this … shipping jobs to China!
First, the background…

Sensata – Happening Today

Mitt Romney started the “private equity” firm Bain Capital. Bain purchases companies using “leveraged buyouts” that borrow huge sums using the purchased company’s own assets as collateral, uses the borrowed money to immediately pay itself, then cuts costs by doing things like sending jobs to China, cutting wages and manipulating tax rules to cut taxes owed, along with standard big-business practices like consolidating business units, taking advantage of economies of scale not available to smaller competitors, squeezing distribution channels for price cuts, and other practices that bring competitive advantages. (See So DID Mitt Romney Really “Create Jobs” At Staples?) After reorganizing the purchased companies Bain then “harvests” them for profit.
One company Bain Capital purchased is Sensata, a sensor manufacturer that makes key components for our automobile supply chain. Sensata then announced it is closing a factory in Freeport, Ill., and sending the manufacturing and jobs to China. (China is engaged in efforts to dominate American auto supplies. See China Cheating Costs 400K Auto Parts Jobs and Why The Latest Trade Complaint Against China Matters.)Bain/Sensata brought in Chinese workers and made the Freeport workers train them. Bain/Sensata is moving the equipment out of the Freeport factory and shipping it to China right now. The Freeport employees have set up a camp outside the factory that they call Bainport and are trying to stop the Bain trucks that are moving the equipment out for shipment to China. Supporters were arrested this week, trying to stop those trucks.The Sensata employees heard Romney on the campaign trail, and somehow got the idea that he opposes sending our jobs to China. So they asked him to come to Freeport/Bainport and help them. Read on to learn about Romney’s response to the Sensata workers, and how Romney is actually making big money right now from shipping their jobs to China.

“The week before they came they took the American flag down outside the plant. The week after they left they put it back up.”

The China Problem – The Public Gets It

During the George W. Bush administration we lost more than 50,000 factories and at least 6 million manufacturing jobs directly to China. (Never mind the effect on the supply chains, the grocery and clothing stores where those people shopped, etc… The foreclosures, the bankruptcies, the misery…) Thanks, George!This chart from Think Progress shows what happened to our manufacturing base immediately after Bush took office. Seriously, look at this chart and see if you can just guess why we have such a terrible economy today:

The public gets it – the problem is China. Polls show that the public overwhelmingly – by percentages in the 80s and 90s for Democrats and Republicans alike – understands that a huge part of our economic troubles come from the was we have been shipping jobs, factories and industries to China.
ABC News, from July: ‘Made In America’ Policies Hugely Popular, Survey Shows

Nearly 9 out of 10 Republicans and Independents and 91 percent of Democrats said they support “Buy America” preferences, according to the survey, which was conducted by the Democratic-leaning Mellman Group.

Romney Refuses To Help – Even Talk With – Sensata Workers

Romney wants to be President, and polls show that the public overwhelmingly wants something done about the problem of jobs and factories moving to China, and the resulting was pressure that puts on the rest of us and on our economy. So Romney says he will do something about it.
But Romney’s current actions are opposite his current words. He complains about China currency manipulation, but refuses to ask the Republican House leadership to bring the China currency bill up for a vote, and refuses to ask more than 60 Republican co-sponsors of that bill to sign a “discharge petition” that would force a vote.And Romney refuses to even meet with Sensata workers. When asked if Romney would help these workers the Romney campaign says Romney will not do it:

“Governor Romney has not worked at Bain Capital for over a decade, but for four years President Obama has been presiding over an economy that is creating too few jobs and sending more jobs overseas. Despite the President being invested in Sensata through his personal pension fund, and the government owning a major Sensata customer in GM, President Obama has not used his powers to help this situation in any way.”— Curt Cashour, Romney Campaign Spokesman.

Why is Romney saying he wants to do something about the trade problem with China, but refusing to actually do anything about the trade problem with China? Here is one possible reason why.

Romney Making Big Money From Bain Sending Sensata Jobs To China

Mr. Romney also has millions invested in a series of Bain funds that have a controlling stake in Sensata Technologies, a manufacturer of sensors and controls for vehicles, aircraft and electric motors that employs 4,000 workers in China. Since Bain took over the operation in 2006, its investment has quadrupled in value. Bain continues to own $2.6 billion worth of Sensata’s shares.
Two years ago, Sensata bought an operation that made automobile sensors in Freeport, Ill. At the first meeting with the plant’s 170 workers, Sensata managers announced that by the end of 2012 all the equipment and jobs would be relocated, mostly to Jiangsu Province. Workers have staged demonstrations, pleading for Mr. Romney to intervene on their behalf.Chinese engineers, flown to Freeport for training on the equipment, described their salaries as a pittance compared with Freeport wages. Tom Gaulrapp, who has operated machines at the factory for 33 years, said he fears he will go bankrupt after he loses his job on Nov. 5.
“This goes to show the unbelievable hypocrisy of this man,” he said of Mr. Romney. “He talks about how we need to get tough on China and stop China from taking our jobs, and then he is making money off shipping our jobs there.”

Sensata Workers – More Jobs Going To China

Workers facing outsourcing by Bain Capital are camping outside the Sensata factory in Freeport, Ill. They are asking Mitt Romney to show up and help save their jobs. They say they will stay camped there until Romney shows up and stands with them – or with Bain.
Mitt Romney can can use this to show us if he wants to be president of the whole United States, or just president of, by and for the outsourcing 1 percenters.

All Mitt has to do is show up and help these workers. He says he is not part of Bain, and wants to be President of all of the country. Mitt Romney can can use this to show us if he wants to be president of the whole United States, or just president of, by and for the outsourcing 1 percenters. He could – and should – do that.

The Bain Workers Bus Tour

Workers from Sensata have left Missouri and are stopping in are stopping in Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, the presidential debate in Hempstead, NY — and are (eventually) heading toward Boston where both Bain Capital and the Romney headquarters are located.They want Romney and Bain to ask them not to send their jobs to China. You can read about their progress at BainWorkerBus.com.

The thing is, these workers might be at this plant, run by this company, but there are millions of workers – millions – in the same boat. Or whose jobs have left or are leaving on the same boat, anyway.

The Chart That Says It All

It is more than just these Sensata workers — they are a symbol of the damage that our terrible “trade” policies have done and are doing to our country. A company can just close a factory here, open it there, bring the same stuff back to sell in the same stores here and call that “trade?” And they can get tax breaks for doing that? They can use the threat of doing that to bust unions and cut our wages? Polls show that We, the People overwhelmingly want this changed, yet it doesn’t change.
Look at the chart in this post at Think Progress: After Nearly A Decade Of Declines, Manufacturing Jobs Begin Rebound. It shows what happened to our manufacturing base literally immediately after George ‘W’ Bush took office. Seriously. Look at this chart and see if you can just guess why we have such a terrible economy today.

During the Bush administration we lost more than 50,000 factories and at least 6 million manufacturing jobs directly to China. (Never mind the effect on the supply chains, the grocery and clothing stores where those people shopped, etc… The foreclosures, the bankruptcies, the misery…) We have a huge trade deficit with China — money that we send to China and then complain that there is not enough money to do things here.
Imagine how our economy would be doing if we had actual trade with China, where we buy things from them and they buy just as many things from us?

After The Election

After the election the country is going to be diverted into a battle over how much more damage we can do to ourselves. Instead of addressing the trade deficit — the cause of our budget and jobs deficit — our plutocrat-funded elites are going to play a Shock Doctrine game of whipping up hysteria about the budget deficit. They are going to terrify the public about “the fiscal cliff” that occurs when the Bush tax cuts expire, and when the deal that put off the hostage-taking over the debt ceiling cuts the military budget, and then the safety net.
Instead of addressing jobs and inequality and wage stagnation and trade and climate and crumbling infrastructure and manufacturing policy and, and, and, they are going to all try to outdo each other offering ways to cut the things that We, the People do for each other — all to keep taxes low for the super-wealthy. Some call this the “Grand Bargain” where they offer up austerity — working so well in Europe — instead of jobs.
Bob Borosage wrote about an alternative approach. Since Jobs Fix Deficits, let’s wait on attacking the budget deficit until there are enough jobs. He calls this a “Jobs Trigger” – enough jobs triggers the time to cut the deficit. From Good Jobs First: No Grand Bargain Without A Jobs Trigger,

Poll after poll shows that voters are concerned most of all about jobs and the economy. Yet in Washington and on the campaign trail, attention has turned to deficits and how to get our books in order.
[. . .] The presidential candidates and Congress should be pressed to adopt a budget version of the “jobs trigger.” Putting people back to work is the first step to getting our books in order. So Congress should pass a fiscal trigger as part of any grand bargain: Comprehensive deficit reduction measures will kick in only when the economy is moving, and unemployment comes down to 5 percent or so.

Please go read the whole post, We must all demand a jobs trigger after the election. Jobs first, then fix the deficits.
And to fix jobs, we have to fix “trade.” We have to stop this idea that it is OK to close a factory here, open it there, then send the same goods back here to sell in the same stores, and use the threat of doing that to even more of us to force wage and benefit cuts, bust unions, etc.This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.Sign up here for the CAF daily summary